>>> Chris Matthew Sciabarra <cms10 at is2.nyu.edu> 08/31/99 08:59PM
I think we need to realize that the effects of Rand's work on political
culture are subtle, and it is difficult to say in the long-run. Marxism
has had a 150 year start on this score; Rand is dead since 1982, and it is
going to be a long time to begin seeing its effects on the kinds of
politics it has produced. I do think that she surely influenced the
movements away from central planning, but so did Hayek and Mises.
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Charles: I'm hoping my influence in changing the world is subtle right now too.
Are you saying Hayek and Mises' influence is subtle too ? Anyway, I am trying to
influence things in the opposite way of Hayek and Mises, that is , in favor of central
planning. What is it in Rand or the others that makes you think central planning is
not the best goal ? Seems anti-dialectical , given that Marxist planning derives
directly from the Marxist critique of the bourgeois anti-holistic, anti-dialectical
conceptions of economy, the contradiction between social production and private
appropriation and the resulting anarchy of production, when enterprises all have a
different plan and are not coordinated.
Seems to me that Marx's influence 17 years after his death was a lot less subtle than
Rand's. In fact, Marx's influence in 1848 with The Manifesto was so unsubtle that he
was exiled from Germany, Belgium and France.
Charles Brown
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